The Break Presents: Trippie Redd

The farther rap gets from its center, the less it seems to resemble what it started as. Trippie Redd is happy to buck the expectations of what people think hip-hop should sound like, instead indulging in his own pop-leaning style for huge songs like "Love Scars" and "Romeo & Juliet." He's part of a new movement of young rappers that are also incorporating strains of punk into their style, whether it be with grungy guitars or screamy vocals; just a couple weeks ago, he did a remix of "Uh Oh, Thots!" with XXXTentacion.

Trippie's father was in jail when he was born and his mother used to play everything from Ashanti and Beyoncé to 2Pac and Nas in the house when they were young. He had an older brother who was doing music, but he passed away in a car accident, so Trippie decided to carry out his brother's dream and pursue a career in music. He started making tracks with his little cousin Nigel, recording his first three songs, including "Sub-Zero" and "New Ferrari," at another cousin's house in Canton (he would later delete the songs from the internet). But he says he found his sound soon after that while recording in Columbus, and when he went down to Atlanta, he hung out with Lil Wop and Kodie Shane a lot and recorded Awakening My Inner Beast, Beast Modeand Rock the World Trippie.

Now Trippie's based out of L.A. and signed to Strainge Entertainment, a label owned by Lucian Grainge's son Elliot with distribution via Universal (Lil Twist apparently expressed interest in signing Trippie early on, but nothing came of it). He dropped his latest mixtape A Love Letter to You back in May, and now he's ready to be rap's next rockstar.

Age: "I went to school with Jesus. I'm 1400. If Chief Keef can run around and say he's 300, I'm definitely 1400."

Hometown: Canton, Ohio

I grew up listening to: "Andre 3000. Drake. 2Pac. Tyler, The Creator. A$AP Rocky. Travis Scott. The Weeknd. Lil Wayne, T-Pain. I listen to a lot of the people that use Auto-tune. That's why I fuck with them. At the same time, I'm versatile and I can do the lyrical thing because I'm listening to these guys for a reason. They do the same exact shit."

My style's been compared to: "They always compare me to Uzi. I try to explain how it's not Uzi. It's like we low-key kind of have the same cadence, but not. We make total opposite music, I don't even make music like him. I make crazy shit. He's just now making a song that relates to his life like that. That "XO Tour Llif3" shit, that's why it went platinum. He finally figured out what he needed to do. He broke up with Brittany and made a song about it. Okay. I been doing that type of shit. I got "Love Scars" tatted on my face. I made a song called "Love Scars," like come on bro.

I feel like [Uzi and I] just need to make music so people will shut the fuck up. They wanna see us together in some shit and then they won't say that shit no more, I'll be my own person. I'm getting every type of co-sign, I know he listens to me. I've been told for a fact that he listens to my music. Playboi Carti follows me. It's all love. I fuck with Uzi. I like Uzi music."

Most people don't know: "They don't know that I'm really savage. Like, crazy... like, I really be on some other shit. Kinda like what [XXXTentacion] is, you feel me? You wouldn't expect X to be like that until you see videos. I'm just sitting here talking to you, regular as hell. But on the internet, you might see me and perceive me a whole other way, like 'Oh he's trolling.' People look at me a whole different way, then when they meet me in person, they try to do lil' weird shit and then I might tee up and go off on 'em. They portray everything, that's what these artists do. They portray other artists, they portray what they think is gonna be viral."

My standout records or biggest moment to date have been: "Three off the bat are "Love Scars," "Love Scars 2/Rack City" and my new song "Gleeeming Karnival."

My goal in hip-hop is: "I want [my music] to be timeless, and with that goal, it's a lot of other shit that can apply to it. Grammys, billboards, all type of shit. I'm really just trying to accomplish everything every major artist has accomplished. I want to do that and some more. I want to accomplish something for myself and set a bar for myself, for somebody to be like, 'Damn, Trippie legendary. He did such and such.'"

I’m going to be the next: "Big artist. That's all I can say. Ain't no genre. I could blow up from making a beat or I could blow up from making a song."